proper value on himself and his attainments; he was prone to sift the precious metal of truth from the dross of uninformed assertion; he had an incurable habit of choosing his friends from amongst those who shared his tastes.  A good Hebrew scholar, he was on terms of special intimacy with Gaspar de Grajal and with Martin Martinez de Cantalapiedra,[35] respectively Professors of Biblical Exegesis and of Hebrew in the University of Salamanca.  Frank to the verge of indiscretion and suspecting no evil, Luis de Leon scattered over Salamanca fagots each of which contained innumerable sticks that his opponents used later to beat him with.  Lastly, he had the misfortune, as it proved later, to differ profoundly on exegetical points from a veteran Professor of Latin, Rhetoric, and Greek.[36] This was Leon de Castro, a man of considerable but unassimilated learning, an astute wire-puller and incorrigible reactionary whose name figures in the bibliographies as the author of a series of commentaries on Isaiah—­a performance which has not been widely read since its tardy first appearance in 1571.  The delay in publishing this work, and the contemporary neglect of it, were apparently ascribed by Castro to the personal hostility of Luis de Leon who, though he did not approve of the book, seems to have been perfectly innocent on both heads.[37]

The fires of these differences had smouldered for some years when, during the University course (as it appears) of 1568-1569, Luis de Leon gave a series of lectures wherein he discussed, with critical respect, the authority attaching to the Vulgate.  The respect passed almost unnoticed; the criticism gave a handle to a group of vigilant foes.  Since 1569 a good deal of water has flowed under the bridges which span the Tormes, and it is intrinsically likely that, were the objectionable lectures before us, Luis de Leon might appear to be an ultra-conservative in matters of Biblical criticism.  But this is not the historical method.  In judging the action of Leon de Castro and his allies we must endeavour to adjust ourselves to the sixteenth-century point of view.  Matters would seem to have developed somewhat as follows.  In 1569 a committee was formed at Salamanca for the purpose of revising Francois Vatable’s version of the Bible; both Luis de Leon and Leon de Castro were members of this committee,[38] and as they represented different schools of thought, there were lively passages between the two.  It is customary to lay at Castro’s door all the blame for the sequel.  Nothing is likelier than that Leon de Castro was incoherent in his recriminations and provocative in tone:  it is further alleged that his commentaries on Isaiah contained gratuitous digs at the views on Scriptural interpretation ascribed to Luis de Leon.  It may well be that Luis de Leon, who had in him something of the irritability of a poet, took umbrage at these indirect attacks, and entered upon the discussion in a fretful state of mind.  According to Leon